I panicked and made a subsidence claim, HELP!

worrisomedad

Please dont apologise for the long post, its all useful information and helps me to feel a bit better. The tree is council owned, we have asked for it to be removed a couple of times but they have refused. They did give it a very good trim last year, but apparently they will only do that every 10 years.

I will contact a tree expert and ask if a root barrier solution is worth it, once the claim process is over, and if the tree is not removed.

My house is in the London area so hopefully someone will buy it when I need to sell. Even with increased insurance the savings in rent would make it worthwhile for someone.

Life does go on, and I hope I can look back on this someday as a learning experience.

subsidence_expert

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81966692#Comment_81966692

Root barriers can be very expensive (see post on UK Subsidence Facebook page - where one cost £63,000), and are not guaranteed to work. Having said that, I am a fan of the modern copper-mesh type - providing its taken to adequate depth and width and properly installed. The type of root barrier discussed in the IStruct E Subsidence book is the old plastic sheet type - which I would never recommend to clients as they had a very bad reputation. At the end of the para the writer mentions that "Microporous barriers are not yet fully tested" and I believe he is referring to the copper mesh type there which was quite new at the time he wrote that article and little data was available about them. Since then, they have been quite widely adopted by the industry and are now very common. They need to be carefully designed by an experienced Arboriculturist though and are not always appropriate. Its much cheaper and more certain to establish what trees are causing the problem and get them removed.

You can find out what data is being held in the CUE in relation to you / your house by doing a SAR check (https://www.mib.org.uk/about-mib/your-data-and-privacy/). If you find that the claim is still recorded as subsidence (and you think that is incorrect) then you should go back to your insurer to get that changed. If your insurers wont do that without proof that its not ongoing subs then you might need an independent report for that - which are easy and cheap to get.